Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Health Care Thing

I'm willing to pay more taxes to help people get health care; I'd prefer single payer care that wasn't tied to jobs. But there are some important changes here.

I've read on a couple blogs that doctors will retire in droves because they won't make enough money.

Here's the thing. If you're making enough money that you can retire at age 50 because you're cranky about the pay, then you're making enough money.

Yeah, tell me about the length of education. 8.4 years for an English PhD, on average. I'll bet philosophy runs longer.

But I bet the stress is less for faculty folks. No one dies if I accidentally say that Shakespeare was born in 1603.

On the other hand, I bet the stress isn't less for the one-third of PhDs in English who never find tenure-track jobs, because being unemployed or freeway flying is stressful. And having to move across the country because you have one job offer is stressful.

I'm not going to complain about my salary. Nope, you see, my household (me) makes about the average for a US household. I don't make three or four times that average, but I'm happy to have a job and make a decent living. (Yeah, my state institution doesn't pay nearly what our "peer" institutions do, much less what our "aspirant" institutions do. And yet, I make a living.)